Science Fiction Though the Decades

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

1979: The Colonists From Space (Young, B.A.)

Retro when retro was lame,
yet stylistically curious (3/5)

Bertram Alfred Young (B.A Young) was best
known as a drama critic from the 1960s to the 1990s, but was still able to make
a unimpressionable dent in the genre of science fiction with Cabinet Pudding
(1967), a rather strange look at British politics in 1996 where the prime
minister is a pot-smoking West Indian, and in 1979 with the lamely titled The
Colonists From Space. I bought this at the Neilson-Hayes Library annual
book sale in Bangkok for 20 baht (65 cents). I was charmed by the simplicity of
the cover and the over-simplicity of the book’s title, both of which stood in
contrast to the book’s relative modernness—1979.

Though the cover may be have a
retro paint scheme and imaging of magazines such as Amazing Stories, Fate
Magazine, and Astounding Science Fiction, the cover for The Colonists From
Space was done by Ionicus (1913 – 1998) who, more famously, drew the book
covers for P.D. Wodehouse novels (Penguin editions) which portray an idyllic
English countryside and home life. Ionicus, actually diagnosed as colorblind
while in the navy, also drew the covers for a handful of other William Kimber’s
publications from 1977-1987, all horror books aside from this lone science
fiction portrait.

Inside dustcover synopsis:

“When the green men from the
flying saucers land in the Cotswold valleys, they set about their task of
civilising the natives with all the pride and integrity the natives themselves
once displayed in the virgin lands of Africa. As the Empire is forged on Earth,
the chroniclers on the home planet record the adventures of the colonial
pioneers with the same fertile imagination that is another context bred Sanders
of the River and Tarzan of the Apes.

B. A. Young presents a series
of accounts, some from the colonial point of view and some from the native,
which tells the story of the exploration and conquest of England by the
invaders from outer space. Part science fiction and part satire, this story
sometimes has a curiously familiar ring. Light-hearted though it is, is has
something to say about the qualities of the imperial spirit.”

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The pastoral serenity of
Cotswolds, England is dominated by bleating sheep and other roving ungulates
which dot the scenic counties of GloucestershireandOxfordshire.
There lives a young boy named Raymond who schemes of defending his home against
alien invaders is, or rather when, they invade. Concomitantly zipping through
the system are the Skrahl, and aboard that Space Corps vessel is Cadet Dan, who
serendipitously discovers Planet 7156 C/s/3 (aka Earth). Though only a cadet,
the honor of first footfall and spearheading the first foray is given to the
cherubic, green-skinned, humanoid boy.

The humans ponder upon the implications of first contact and
concern themselves with congeniality and good manners: “How could comforts be
ensured? Should any alteration of our atmosphere be contemplated to ensure that
the strangers would be able to breathe it? Would our climatic conditions prove
suitable, and if not, how could we vary them?” (16). Yet, when the landing
party arrives and eventually makes contact, the Skrahl take the defensive and
prepare their battlefield, their grounds of war with the humans—the initial verbal
debate. The conscientious Skrahl adhere to their debate protocols and the
conventions of debate warfare, but Cadet Dan eyes the opportunity to play the
very game the humans do: be brash, abrupt, loud, ignorant, immature, feisty,
and irrational. Regardless of his strategy, Dan loses this debate against his
designated opponent—the 8-year old named Raymond of Gloucestershire.

The actions of the locals
of Gloucestershire stump the colonialists. The invaders
don’t really put all that much effort into understanding the ways of the
English, the Europeans or even the Earthly ways in general. It seems as if the
villagers “amuse themselves by taking pictures of everything they see and
either printing it on sheets of paper or transmitting it electronically on
ground-glass screens in their homes” and “hunger for such simples goods as
long-playing gramophone records and a coarse blue cloth called denim” (46). They
can’t make any sense of the English language with all of its erroneous
pronunciations, so they dub the country of England by a more phonetically
correct name—Ingland.

This single-minded materialism of the humans penetrates the
elastic culture of the Skrahl, who export the same popular items to their home
which become fashionable at the universities… one of which Raymond attends.
Seemingly under the patronage of Cadet-cum-Captain Dan, Raymond is actually
gathering information about the alien race in order to plan a
counter-insurgency cell which he will call the Inglish Independent
Insurrection.

Raymond sneaks back to Earth and maintains a low profile in
the physical sense, yet still heads his organization’s efforts to cast off the
yoke of alien imperialism. Various strategies to fight the colonialism include
raiding weapon depots and planting moles within the aliens’ human servants;
Captain Dan realizes that Raymond is behind the counter-insurgency and aims to
capture him in order to understand the logic behind the assaults—the Skrahl
have given the humans better denim and more long-play records, thereby giving a
higher standard of living.

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The novel, by its cover alone, looks like a juvenile science
fiction novel and its undertaking reeks of either juvenilism or amateurism:
humanoid aliens with green skin and yellow blood, saucer cities, saucer
spacecraft, and atomic gadgets. Remembering that B.A. Young was a journalist by
trade and satirist by quirk, the reader can take note three distinguishing
facets of this semi-precious novel.

(1) Nearly each of the fourteen chapters is written with a
distinctive prose, unique format or unusual angle of attack: first-person
narrative, academic overview with footnotes, casual recount of an amusing
incident, diary entries, etc. The introduction of the novel was written by the fictional
Emeritus Professor of Earth Studies, Dejah, who compiled the portions of the
book to provide “a comprehensive yet readable survey of what colonialism really
is” (13). The montage of writing styles is mildly interesting in the
macroscopic sense, but… no, it’s mildly interesting at best.

(2) His attempts at humor are reflective of his satire on
English life. Some inclusions, such as the native human fixation on denim and
LPs, fall flat even when repeated at length throughout the novel and even when
the same materialistic possessions are used as a bribe. This garners a smile.
Only one chapter of the book provided an excellent perspective on alien logic
and use of the author’s humor: chapter 5 entitled “Green Hills of
Gloucestershire” is an adaptation of an edition which appeared in the magazine Punch
under the title “Symbiosis”.

(3) The opposite side of the humor in satire is the more
constructive side of pointing the finger of colonialism back on the
colonialists themselves—the British. I’m not a historian nor am I keen about
Britain’s past colonialism to pick up on the nuances about having the tables
turned, but it’s obvious enough that the author is prodding the British
collective ego. The Skrahl take their land, change their laws, issue their own
licenses, occupy their industry, overthrown their government, and then wonder
why the humans are so pesky about the colonization. A few post-WWII examples of
stepping out from the shadow of British imperialism: India (1947), Burma
(1948), Malaya (1957), Cyprus and Nigeria (1960), Singapore and Kenya (1963), Malta
(1964), Guyana and Barbados (1966).

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The Colonists From Space is pedestrian for the
average reader, but perhaps notable for someone seeking the odd morsels of
British sci-fi (i.e. me), a post-WWII decolonization historian or a juvenile
reader. It’s weird because the plot simplicity contrasts the unique collection of
each chapter’s distinctiveness; it’s silly because the humanoid aliens are so
much like the conniving humans yet their alien logic tends to get the best of
them; and it’s interesting because of the colonial context of the old British
Empire. If you can immerse yourself in one of those three—weird, silly or interesting—then
you may enjoy this novel to a greater degree than I did… but because it assumes
all these contrasts and stands out as an oddity by its retro cover, I think she’s
a keeper for my collection.